Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus have had enough of efforts to stifle debate over climate change policy, particularly by those who solicit quotes to “trash” those who don’t toe the party line. Roger Pielke, Jr. would add those who selectively edit their comment threads.
UPDATE: The primary point of the post is to highlight Shellenberger & Nordhaus’ commentary on “the state of the liberal debate about climate change”: “Those who question apocalyptic predictions are treated as global warming deniers or traitors or worse. Those who advocate solutions other than cap-and-trade have their characters assassinated.” Exhibit A in their post is the treatment of those who believe climate change is a serious problem, as they do, yet nonetheless question the desirability of cap-and-trade, targets and timetables, etc. The furor over SuperFreakonomics is a recent example. Their post notes some others.
SECOND UPDATE: Those who think my post is a defense of climate change skepticism may wish to re-read my February 2008 post on “Climate Change, Cumulative Evidence, and Ideology.” Like Shellenberger, Nordhaus, and Pielke, I believe climate change is a serious policy concern.
THIRD UPDATE: Brad DeLong responds in the comments below, as well as in this post. My response can be found here.
bailey says:
Wow. We’re really defining McCarthyism down these days, aren’t we?
From what I can tell, Romm is accused of soliciting critical quotes about a book, and then attacking someone who challenges his tactics. Maybe that makes him a jerk or unethical, but McCarthyism? I don’t see it.
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November 8, 2009, 10:28 pmHarryEagar says:
Yeah, imagine a partisan going out and actually recruiting supporters. Next thing you know, somebody will form a political party to try to influence voters.
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November 8, 2009, 10:38 pmJohn Moore says:
Actually, McCarthy, for all his outrageous behavior, did very little damage to his opponents and a lot more damage to his allies. He was also a short lived phenomenon, compared to modern climate political correctness.
On the other hand, the inability of skeptical scientists to speak out without losing their grants or their upcoming tenure is real and very dangerous. I personally know several PhD climatologists who have to deal with this. They have done so either by avoiding the subject of AGW or leaving academia (several). I know one who lost his research position due to having published research showing benefits of CO2 to agriculture.
Since “McCarthyism” has become a term of art, it is quite appropriate to apply it to those who attack climate skeptics and especially to those who actively suppress the skeptics through tactics such as denying tenure or grants, or refusing to publish skeptical papers in their journals.
This is happening big time right now in Climatology. It is no accident that the climatologists who do speak out are very senior and either secure in their positions, or retired.
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November 8, 2009, 10:51 pmGaryC says:
What is happening in the blogosphere may resemble McCarthyism, but what is happening to the scientists more closely approaches climate Lysenkoism.
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November 8, 2009, 11:30 pmTim Lambert says:
It is disappointing to see Jonathan Adler giving an approving link to Roger Pielke Jr’s dishonest personal attack on me. I reply here:
1) After complaining that DeLong and Romm don’t link to his words when criticising him, he doesn’t link to my words. Probably because he can’t on account of his charges against me being fabrications.
2) In the very same sentence that he makes an ad hominem attack on me he alleges that I make ad hominem attacks. Does Pielke think ad hominem attacks are OK or not?
3) In the sentence directly following his claim that I see it as my sole job to trash Pielke’s reputation with “innuendo, fabrication and outright misrepresentation”, Pielke attempts to trash me using innuendo, fabrication and outright misrepresentation.
3a) Far from “carpet-bombing” the internet with references to my post about Pielke’s botched Google search, I have never once referred to it. (Link goes to a not-botched Google search.)
3b) Even those (not me) who have referred to that post are not insinuating that Pielke is evil, but rather that he is incompetent.
3c) I have never blogged anything about Pielke attacking Gore.
3d) I have never said that “Pielke is the Devil!!” I believe that readers of my posts about Pielke are capable of drawing their own conclusions about his character. See for example, my post on his debut at Nature and the first 50 comments there.
3e) I have engaged with the substance of Pielke’s work. See, for example, my post about Pielke’s critique of Hansen’s emission scenarios.
3f) Pielke is a political scientist. I am a computer scientist. Seems to me we are equally qualified or unqualified to comment on Hansen’s work. And can you imagine what Pielke would say if Michael Mann had said that Ross McKitrick was professionally unqualified to comment on his work?
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November 8, 2009, 11:31 pmSteve says:
Have you ever noticed there are some folks who just never shut up about being silenced?
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November 8, 2009, 11:53 pmEvilDave says:
I sympathize.
I am against protesting but I don’t know how to show it.
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November 9, 2009, 12:14 amOrin Kerr says:
Reading over the linked materials, I find it hard to figure out what is going on.
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November 9, 2009, 12:41 amMike says:
Here is about all I could tell: Brad DeLong deletes comments he disagrees with — and then lies about making deletions.
Oh, and something about fish.
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November 9, 2009, 2:08 amA. Zarkov says:
Yes he does, and I have experienced it personally. He will delete even an on-topic, polite, and brief comment just because he disagrees and evidently does not want others to see the comment. Sometimes his threads will get confusing because people are commenting on a deleted comment. Now I see he denies that he deletes comments! He also fails to delete comments that are downright rude and even abusive.
In my a opinion, a university professor should set a high standard for his personal behavior because to some extent he provides a role model for his students. Most do, but unfortunately DeLong does not. He insults people, and engages in frequent name calling. That’s too bad. Once he had a good blog, but it’s gotten so bad I deleted it from my bookmarks. The blog is now a kind of left-wing circle-jerk. Too bad because it started off very well and was extremely informative. He can do better.
I think he has fallen prey to the culture of the University of California at Berkeley and San Francisco. These place are ultra-political, and extremely intolerant. Until recently I did not realize that UCSF is as bad as UCB.
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November 9, 2009, 6:03 amMidlantan says:
I don’t have any inside information on whether Delong deletes comments with which he disagrees. But there’s a bit of irony in seeing VC complain about it. I find that of the assorted blogs I read, VC is the one with the most frequent comment deletions. (David Bernstein seems to have taken this one step further and simply turned off comments on many of his posts.) Yes, these deletions can be annoying to readers, but it’s perfectly within the VC’s right to do it. And in some cases, it probably improves VC reader’s experiences by omitting the most “out there” or obnoxious and uncivil comments. (I guess we VC readers can’t know, since the material is usually deleted before most of us get to read it.) Does this “stifle debate”? Is this “McCarthyism”? I’m not sure about the former, but I’m pretty sure it’s not the latter.
To be fair, I understand different VC bloggers take different approaches to comment deletion, and of course the subject matter of their posts tends to make a difference in the civility of comments. I don’t recall Jonathan Adler deleting comments. I’m not accusing him (or VC) of hypocrisy — just pointing out that VC deletes plenty.
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November 9, 2009, 8:42 amaf says:
Reading over the linked materials, I find it hard to figure out what is going on.
Indeed. The linked post by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus begins “If you want to understand how it is that the debate over global warming policies became so shrill . . . .” Then it gets shrill, and hard to understand.
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November 9, 2009, 8:43 amegd says:
Some blogger reads the title of a chapter on Global Warming in Superfreakanomics, freaks out.
Said blogger trashes the authors on his blog, seeks negative comments from scientist quoted in the book.
Said scientist notes that one line was wrong, blames himself for not proofreading carefully.
Said blogger splays headline “OMG LIES IN SUPERFREAKANOMICS!”, somewhere near the end actually mentions that only one quote was wrong, the rest of the chapter is pretty much right.
Authors of Freakanomics take issue with said blogger being disingenuous.
Pielke says something about an unrelated blogger deleting comments. Not really sure the relevance except for the tangential “left-wing/climate change bloggers don’t like dissenting opinions.”
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November 9, 2009, 8:46 amBrad DeLong says:
Ummm...
Perhaps you should go *read* my comments section before you write about it?
The relevant is:
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/10/does-superfreakonomics-need-a-do-over.html
[Brad — I have read you comments section, and had my own civil comments deleted from it — as have others (including Shellenberger). Here’s one screen cap from Roger’s post. Should I post others? JHA]
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November 9, 2009, 8:52 amwm13 says:
That is not my experience. My experience is the Brad DeLong is the worst in this regard, i.e., he deletes large numbers of civil, on-point comments merely because he disagrees with them. He compounds this violation of community norms by lying about his operational method.
DeLong has been pretty regularly called out on other blogs for his methods (sometimes by the bloggers, sometimes by their commenters). Check out Stuart Buck, Marginal Revolution, Megan McArdle etc. So it’s not a secret.
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November 9, 2009, 9:38 amTenrou says:
In an era of full of Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannitys, we haven’t moved that far. Speaking of the former, I just read about him being in the middle of some new false attribution battle: http://lawblog.legalmatch.com/2009/10/19/cnn-falsely-attributes-racist-quote-to-rush-limbaugh/
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November 9, 2009, 10:36 amuh_clem says:
Is there a version of Godwin for McCarthy? If not, there should be.
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November 9, 2009, 10:48 amThales says:
If you read the comments on DeLong’s blog, it appears there was a technical glitch involving publication of comments originating from one browser v. another. So Pielke accused DeLong of selective deletion or refusal to publish, DeLong responded by calling Pielke insane. Now Pielke wants a retraction of the insanity comment but thus far appears not to have apologized for his false accusation of bad faith–can we grow up people?
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November 9, 2009, 11:01 amDotar Sojat says:
AGW (a/k/a “climate change that we can use for our agenda”) is one religion you’re not allowed to blaspheme.
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November 9, 2009, 11:20 amBrad says:
As a recent graduate, I can tell you that advocates for climate change have politicized the issue. If you take a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) course in Business school, you’d better be ready to write that climate change is occurring and that we need to do something now. You might pass if you write that climate change may be occuring, we’re not sure, but we need to do something now. If you write “climate change is bullshit” and list reasons why, you will flunk. CSR courses are mandatory now. This is for “business ethics,” which I think is a sad comment on the state of business ethics.
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November 9, 2009, 11:32 amRPT says:
Two questions:
1. Where does the “never allow comments” (except for favorable cross-posting references) policy of Jim Lindgren fit in? His posts tend to be hysterical.
2. How do those who assert anti-GW censorship, et al, explain the influence of corporations [lobbyists, astro-turf groups, etc) on the debate? A lot; a little; none?
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November 9, 2009, 12:11 pmM. Gross says:
Anyone familiar with online discussions of climate change will be all to familiar with how climate change supports censor views they don’t like, attempts to circumvent disclosure requirements so their obvious cherry-picking and manipulation isn’t uncovered, and spends most of their time launching ad hominem attacks and bandwagon arguments.
It’s far more a political lobby than anything approaching science, but then again, people should be suspicious of any science which refuses to make concrete predictions and engages in the use of extremely dubious proxies.
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November 9, 2009, 12:15 pmzuch says:
Prof. Adler:
You want honest debate, get your freakin’ studies published in properly reviewed places. Present papers at conferences. “Science by press release” is nothing of the sort, and science isn’t some kind of two-handed “he said, she said, so can’t we just say ‘to-mah-toe’ or ‘ta-may-toe’ as we please” type thing. If there’s a legitimate disagreement or uncertainty, you suggest ways to figure out where the (single) truth lies (and then go do just that), rather than throwing up one’s hands and saying “it’s toooooooo complicated; I don’t know what to do [so I’ll do what the energy companies coincidentally want]”.
Cheers,
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November 9, 2009, 12:15 pmzuch says:
And Pielke’s complaint [on his own blog] is that he’s not able to post on Brad DeLong’s blog?!?!?
Gimmeabreak.....
Cheers,
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November 9, 2009, 12:20 pmzuch says:
I’d note (re Pielke’s kvetching) that some comments on VC are pruned as well, and also that Pielke is complaining that links back to his own blog are getting deleted. Someone needs to look up “blogwhoring” (I won’t say I haven’t done such myself, but I’d hardly complain if someone though their blog wasn’t for the purpose of driving traffic to mine).
Cheers,
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November 9, 2009, 12:26 pmzuch says:
Prof. Adler:
Ummm, can I point out that both S&N’s and Pielke’s comments seem to concern primarily blogoverse ‘discussion’ and the ethics and manners involved there. Pointing this out seems to be missing the greatest source of atmospheric change in such climes: For those who can’t seem to fathom this, clue fer ya, the blogoverse is not run under Marquis of Queensbury rules (or Roberts’ Rules of Order). Equating [alleged] misbehaviour there with “McCarthyism” shows a distinct lack of perspicacity.
Cheers,
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November 9, 2009, 12:45 pmzuch says:
John Moore:
Cites, please?
Argumentation by personal anecdote, eh?
Sounds like no great loss.
Evidence for this? Hey, who’s disputing that CO2 levels affect [some] plant growth?
Cheers,
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November 9, 2009, 12:50 pmDan Weber says:
Comment policies, ordered roughly best-to-worst:
* Comments are allowed. Comments may be edited or deleted, but when this happens it is always clear that it happened. (Exceptions may be made for posts that are pure spam.)
* No comments are allowed.
* All comments are allowed with no moderation whatsoever.
* Comments are allowed and approved when the moderator gets time.
* (big gap here)
* Allow comments, but selectively delete those you don’t like, and then afterwards deny deleting anything.
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November 9, 2009, 1:08 pmMike says:
That is scandalous, and certainly worthy of a post of its own.
People are free to delete comments based on a whim. To lie about it, though, is unseemly.
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November 9, 2009, 1:48 pmegd says:
Speaking of comment etiquette and deleting posts, is there any policy at VC about double, triple, quadruple, or quintuple posting? If not, should there be?
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November 9, 2009, 2:13 pmzuch says:
egd says:
There was essentially no duplication in those comments. Each had its own topic and/or was a response to a different comment/commentator. Are you suggesting that I should go on a diet, and limit myself to one thought per day? How’s your weight, BTW?....
But if there’s a daily catch limit that exists on VC, I’ll gladly throw back any posts that are over the legal size and exceed the permitted quota. Someone needs to let us folks know what the limits are, though....
Are there also restrictions on comments that are off-topic or not particularly germane?
Cheers,
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November 9, 2009, 2:38 pmrarango says:
Zuch–re your request for citations and criticism of personal anecdote–I thought you said the blogosphere did not play by marquis of queensbury rules–cites are wonderful in peer reviewed literature, but I have no problem with arguments by anecdote and lack of cites–I thought that was your point about MQ rules or Roberts Rules of Order–did I miss your point?
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November 9, 2009, 2:57 pmzuch says:
rarango:
Apparently. Here in the blogosphere, I can demand whatever I damn well want. ;-)
Cheers,
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November 9, 2009, 3:02 pmrarango says:
Zuch–a man true to his convictions! Great answer! :)
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November 9, 2009, 3:08 pmzuch says:
[...]
Is DeLong denying deleting posts here?
Cheers,
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November 9, 2009, 3:09 pmBrad DeLong says:
Lots of lies here...
As I have said, repeatedly, I am trying to keep my comments section worth reading–to keep it from turning into a food fight. As such, I prune it.
I think that any fair person (and almost all not-fair people) reading my comments section will conclude that it is *far* from being a choir that agrees with me, and is of remarkably high quality as these things go.
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November 9, 2009, 3:15 pmA. Zarkov says:
Don’t believe him. He often allows the most abusive comments to be directed against the viewpoints he endorses. Case in point. I commented on abiotic petroleum generation and was immediately personally attacked. I was accused of working for the oil companies. None of these were deleted. In another thread I suggested that illegal immigration might have a downward effect on wages. This was immediately deleted without notice even though it was short, on-topic and polite.
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November 9, 2009, 4:17 pmGrover Gardner says:
Are you talking about this thread from three years ago? The one in which you start off with a personal insult aimed at Al Gore? That must have gotten things off on the right foot. ;-) Then, of course, you got some rather stinging replies to your comment–from one other commenter. I imagine it must have been unpleasant, but really, it’s nothing worse than what I’ve read here at VC. And another commenter even came to your defense!
And I don’t know what comment of yours was deleted, but a simple Google search of the topic returns quite a few of your comments at DeLong’s blog over the span of several years. I guess some of them must have made it through the censor.
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November 9, 2009, 4:44 pmGrover Gardner says:
Of course, lost in all the finger-pointing here is the original point, made by Romm, Krugman, DeLong and many others, that the chapter from Superfreakonomics on global warming that was originally posted online not only grossly misrepresented Ken Caldeira’s stance on carbon dioxide’s role in global climate change, but contained other ridiculous errors as well. That Romm acted like an ass does not change this basic fact.
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November 9, 2009, 4:54 pmA. Zarkov says:
I never said that DeLong deleted all my comments only some. I don’t understand your point.
As for the thread on abiotic oil, thanks for finding that. I urge everyone to read it so they can see what happened. Now please point me to a place in that thread where I made an untrue statement, including my discussion of Gore.
While people have opposed me on the VC, as far as I can tell I am never deleted with one possible exception, and that had to do with a link to a racy picture. Delong deletes without any notice– that’s what outrageous.
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November 9, 2009, 5:39 pmNickM says:
egd — most double, etc. posting is the result of computer glitches (somebody hits refresh while it’s processing, somebody multiple clicks submit, etc.).
Unless it appears to be an active attempt to ruin the comment thread, it’s probably not worth doing anything about.
Nick
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November 9, 2009, 5:57 pmCareless says:
As people have pointed out in the past, DeLong’s basically the (left wing) Fox News of economics blogging, right down to his slogan (which partially reads “fair, balanced”). It’s... either repulsive (if he’s aware of it) or frightening (if he’s not) that he would come here to defend his comment deletion policy.
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November 9, 2009, 6:38 pmegd says:
Just fine, thanks for asking. But General Netiquette suggests that you avoid posting multiple times. The “quote” button will automatically provide a quote box, like this:
of any text you highlight, with the poster’s name and a link back to the original post. If you select text in multiple posts, and hit quote from each, it will append the new quote box below the previous.
I figure when we’re discussing netiquette, it’s relevant, if tangential.
Plus, I find your avatar distracting, it clashes with the decor.
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November 9, 2009, 7:01 pmJohn Moore says:
That’s an odd framing of the issue. Corporations (there are very few astro-turf groups except on the LEFT/GREEEN side) are not ideological. They make their bets. Some have bet that they’ll do best by going along with the climate change panic. Others have been bludgeoned into it. Others keep their heads down and use their lobbyists to try to get Congress to protect their own interests. Lots of them are paying protection money to Congressmen.
They rarely have the power of censorship.
Nice.
There was a paper (you can dig up the cite) that proclaimed that the debate was over, because zero skeptic papers had been published in a significant set of peer reviewed journals over some time period.
Of course, if you understand science, you recognize that this paper was almost a proof of the proposition that censorship of skeptical papers is common. If you know how the grant process works, and how the peer culture works, you know that it is dangerous to go up against AGW.
No, I’m not gonna provide cites. Who the hell that you would believe is going to admit to the censorship (and, more importantly, intimidation) that is happening? Science? (read their biased editorials) BAMA? Read their biased editorials. Even more than the climatologists, the writers are deeply in the bag for AGW.
BTW... note that the leading “climate expert” (Hansen) is not trained as an earth scientist:
* B.A., Physics and Mathematics, 1963, University of Iowa
* M.S., Astronomy, 1965, University of Iowa
* Ph.D., Physics, 1967, University of Iowa
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November 9, 2009, 7:15 pmJohn Moore says:
Correction BAMS (not BAMA)
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November 9, 2009, 7:15 pmguy in the veal calf office says:
The best comment policy I’ve seen is Baseball Prospectus. After a certain numbers of readers give a comment “thumbs down” the comment becomes hidden but can be viewed by an extra click. (I think Slash Dot does that).
Of course, the readers (or posters, if that option is selected) have to be judicious but I believe VC readers (and posters– except Professor Volokh, who is as indecent a holy terror as you can find–) are.
I only “thumbs down” comments that start with “Um...”
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November 9, 2009, 9:38 pmBrad DeLong says:
Jonathan Adler queries my deletion of two comments from http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/10/does-superfreakonomics-need-a-do-over.html.
The one from Roger Pielke–the one in which he claimed “since you do not delete comments...”–went as actively misleading.
the one from Dylan Williams went as a drive-by.
[No, Brad, there are others too, including those by Michael Shellenberger, “Ron,” and yours truly. I’m sure they were all “actively misleading” as well. JHA]
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November 9, 2009, 10:02 pmzuch says:
John Moore:
Oh. So I gotta go do your research for you, eh?
Really? I worked in the bidness; I know the bidness. That doesn’t comport with my take on it ... but that would just be ‘argument from personal experience”, so I won’t bother. I’ll just ignore your unsubstantiated claims. M’kay?
Once again, argumentum ad bald assertion. My, how compelling.
Cheers,
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November 9, 2009, 10:12 pmJohn Moore says:
No, ya gotta do YOUR research. I already know about that paper... apparently you don’t.
As for “worked in da bidness” — yeah, I have too.
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November 9, 2009, 11:00 pmCareless says:
Ha, DeLong keeps digging.
Let’s look at this thread http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/09/20050912_popula.html#comment-9503254
In response to a still not deleted post beginning “Defined as genetically distinct groups, races don’t exist. That’s what I learned, anyway, and nothing anyone has written here suggests I wasn’t paying attention to the teacher.” DeLong deletes
and then
Nothing but garbage his readers shouldn’t have to wade through there, I guess.
It doesn’t take long googling DeLong results on Marginal Revolution to find people writing about things he doesn’t want his readers to know about.
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November 9, 2009, 11:58 pmBrad DeLong says:
Juan Non-Volokh queries my deletion of his “civil comment” to http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/10/does-superfreakonomics-need-a-do-over.html:
His comment was, I think (this may be the wrong one), the drive-by:
“That’s real mature, dredging up a six-month-old post From Joe Romm to top your links of the day in order to take a swat at Pielke without ever addressing any of his arguments yourself. I would have expected more from an academic of your statute. Jonathan H. Adler”
For that comment to have stayed, IIRC, it would have had to contain an argument that what Joe Romm said was wrong–an argument that brought some information to the table.
It didn’t.
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November 10, 2009, 12:00 amBrad DeLong says:
Oh goodie!
The knuckle-draggers who have no clue–absolutely no clue–about the magnitude of gene flow across subparts of the human population have arrived!
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November 10, 2009, 12:05 amCareless says:
You got your ass handed to you by people who know far more on the subject than you do, then deleted the evidence.
edit: as much of the evidence as you could, anyway
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November 10, 2009, 12:17 amCareless says:
And seriously, Brad, your response here is to personally attack me, someone you don’t know and doesn’t even ever post on your blog, instead of trying any sort of rebuttal? That’s precisely in line with your Fox News of blogging reputation, but I don’t think you’d want to encourage that reputation
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November 10, 2009, 12:30 amBrad DeLong says:
Well, we all began to spread out across the Red Sea and radiate from the Horn of Africa some 40K years ago...
So let’s figure a really advantageous mutation–one that spreads out so that its share in the gene pool rises by one percent every generation–hits some lucky sod in the human population some 25K years–1000 generations–ago. And suppose that lucky sod was part of an interbreeding human population of 10M back then...
Then today the share of the population who are advantageous mutants would be... 0.2%. Our generations are so long that we have not had enough *time* since the initial radiation to develop into proper subspecies. You need much more selection pressure to produce that...
Now there are features of humanity that have been under such selection pressure: no-melanin is very good in Sweden, while melanin is very good in Congo; sensitivity to wool is very bad in wet climates far from the equator after the domestication of sheep; lactose tolerance as an adult is very good after the domestication of the cow.
But the possibility that there was some big intelligence-boosting mutation somewhere along the radiative way that makes all the Aryans genetically smart and all the Africans genetically dumb? Very, very low. It’s something that you bet on and believe in and that makes you think that it is really important who belongs to the Aryan race and who does not... only if you already believe it for... some other reason...
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November 10, 2009, 12:55 amGrover Gardner says:
I understand saving that comment to some corner of your hard drive in the hope that someday you could throw it in Brad’s face. But for four years? Your genes must have gotten crossed with those of an elephant–or my mother-in-law. ;-)
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November 10, 2009, 1:24 amnathan tankus says:
as far as i can tell a political scientist,a computer scientist and an economist are fighting a blog war about deleting posts=mccarthyism. dont you people have like,the worlds problems to solve?
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November 10, 2009, 1:43 amzuch says:
John Moore:
No, ya gotta do YOUR research. I already know about that paper... apparently you don’t.
If you tried that with your thesis committee, I’m quite sure you would have been set straight. But the choice is clearly yours ... present your evidence, and make your case ... or say in a condescending fashion, “why don’t you look it up yourself [even though I haven’t given you the foggiest as to where to find it]?”, and make yourself out to be an unconvincing and seemingly ignerrent blowhard. Choice is yours, as I said.
Cheers,
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November 10, 2009, 2:54 amzuch says:
Careless says:
First I’d heard that Swedes were a race. That explains the Sven and Ole jokes us Norskis tell, eh?
Cheers,
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November 10, 2009, 2:59 amzuch says:
Careless also quotes:
Wow. “[M[arkers”, eh? So if you look at what’s different, you find what’s different. Who’s looking at what is not different? And who’s explaining why the supposed differences [as opposed to what’s the same] make a “race”?
OT, I know, but I can’t let this kind of folderol go unanswered....
Cheers,
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November 10, 2009, 3:04 amA. Zarkov says:
Some people have good memories, others just make stuff up.
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November 10, 2009, 4:20 amA. Zarkov says:
Here is a detailed discussion of population structure and eigen analysis including all the mathematics involved.
Abstract
Current methods for inferring population structure from genetic data do not provide formal significance tests for population differentiation. We discuss an approach to studying population structure (principal components analysis) that was first applied to genetic data by Cavalli-Sforza and colleagues. We place the method on a solid statistical footing, using results from modern statistics to develop formal significance tests. We also uncover a general “phase change” phenomenon about the ability to detect structure in genetic data, which emerges from the statistical theory we use, and has an important implication for the ability to discover structure in genetic data: for a fixed but large dataset size, divergence between two populations (as measured, for example, by a statistic like FST) below a threshold is essentially undetectable, but a little above threshold, detection will be easy. This means that we can predict the dataset size needed to detect structure.
How well can you do with two principal components? Well enough to resolve Europen genetic substructure as shown here.
Genetics has been made into an inflammatory subject when it relates to individual differences. The recently retired expert in twin and adoption studies Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr. reminisces on group think and political correctness in a farewell interview to Science. He describes the anti-intellectual atmosphere at UC Berkeley he encountered as graduate student:
Credit for putting all this together goes to Steve Hsu. BTW Hsu is an Obama fan– I guess no one is perfect.
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November 10, 2009, 5:01 amA. Zarkov says:
From an article by Nicholas Wade– Researcher Condemns Conformity Among His Peers
The silencing of skeptics is what climate McCarthyism is all about. The kind of drive-by snark that DeLong engages in is a perfect example.
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November 10, 2009, 5:35 amJonathan H. Adler says:
Brad DeLong posts about our little dispute on his blog.
I’ve responded in his comments as follows:
As for my comment above that Brad deleted from his blog’s comment thread but reposts above. After being criticized on Roger Pielke Jr’s blog, Brad posted a six-month old attack on Pielke as the lead item in his round-up of purportedly recent blog posts. As the attack did not substantiate any of DeLong’s prior attacks on Pielke, I determined that link served no other purpose than to swat at Pielke again, and commented accordingly on his blog. Apparently, Brad likes to dish, but is a bit sensitive when people come to his sandbox to respond. As I said in that post, I would have expected more from an academic of his stature, particularly one who is so willing to attack others in strong terms.
JHA
[UPDATE: When I originally posted my comment on DeLong’s blog this morning, it appeared right away. Now, however, it has been replaced with a comment from DeLong that edits my comment, as well as my post, and accuses me of lying and being “actively misleading.” I’ll let readers judge for themselves — and won’t delete comments that disagree with my view.]
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November 10, 2009, 8:18 amzuch says:
A. Zarkov quotes Nicholas Wade:
Did they? If so, was it due to “group-think”? If so, ought we be looking into conspiracy and/or anti-trust prosecutions?
And then there’s the question of how to define “brightest minds”. If we’re using an operational definition, that might cull the herd a bit.
Nicholas Wade was a better writer when he wrote for Science. I suspect he’s sold his soul to the de’el here.
Cheers,
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November 10, 2009, 10:59 amA. Zarkov says:
It’s possible to have group think without conspiracy. The idea that “housing prices never fall” had a basis in fact. The country-wide median residential housing price actually never did fall before 2008. Wall Street was applying, or should I say misapplying, inductive logic in thinking this would keep up into the indefinite future. Thus many in Wall Street believed that a geographically diversified Mortgage portfolio would not suffer a decline. As this notion reinforced their lust for profit, they bought into it in a big way– that’s where the group-think comes in.
BTW group-think about housing prices also applies to most economists including DeLong. Readers of his blog in 2005–2007 were given little notice as to what was in store for housing in 2008, apart from the occasional commenter lucky enough not to have been deleted. But readers of the blog Calculated Risk were much more fortunate. I sold my house in 2005 (very near the peak) and didn’t re-purchase. Of course the two blog hosts at CR were not professors, and that helped.
As for Nicholas Wade, what’s your problem with him? How has he sold his soul?
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November 10, 2009, 11:48 amTim Lambert says:
I would imagine that your comment was deleted because it was actively misleading. DeLong reposted this post of mine, which was not a six month old post, but from two months before. And it wasn’t gratuitous — Pielke had challenged him to provide evidence that Pielke was “dishonest and wrong”.
And you are hardly in a position to complain, given your taking a swat at me with your linking of Pielke’s dishonest personal attack on me.
[My comment was not about DeLong’s repost of something by you, but a six-month old post by Joseph Romm. The original post was from March. It topped DeLong’s list of links for the day on October 20. Whatever else this post, and your posts, may show, they do not support labeling Pielke a “denier.” JHA]
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November 10, 2009, 12:08 pmA. Zarkov says:
How about we all stop with the personal attacks? Is that too much to ask? I know that might be an insurmountable barrier for DeLong who for some reason needs to constantly insult people, but the rest of us can act like grown ups.
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November 10, 2009, 12:12 pmDan Weber says:
Oh, got one more for my rough ordering of comment systems, right near the bottom:
* Leave comments you don’t like in a moderation queue, suggesting to commenters that their submissions will eventually be approved. Approve others in the meantime.
I was reminded of this tactic when I saw Hans Bader comment in another thread.
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November 10, 2009, 12:32 pmThe Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Against Climate McCarthyism, Part Deux says:
[...] posted earlier on Shellenberger and Nordhaus’ first fusillade. Categories: Climate Change, [...]
Brad DeLong says:
Ah. I see that Juan Non-Volokh has recanted and withdrawn his original post, which was (you all recall) in its entirety:
“Against Climate McCarthyism: Jonathan H. Adler • November 8, 2009 9:56 pm: Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus have had enough of efforts to stifle debate over climate change policy, particularly by those who solicit quotes to “trash” those who don’t toe the party line. Roger Pielke, Jr. would add those who selectively edit their comment threads...”
Now he says that what he actually meant to write is:
Against Climate McCarthyism: The charge ‘climate McCarthyism’ refers to the tactic of labeling those who question climate policy orthodoxy as ‘deniers’ — a term meant to draw a moral equivalence between climate skeptics and holocaust deniers and chill dissenting views...”
A very different thing indeed.
I suggest that he edit his post up at the top of this thread, so that it reflects what he meant to write rather than what he did write.
Me, I always thought the original reference in “deniers” was to St. Peter in the courtyard by the fire, thrice before the cock crowed–with the subtext that repentance is very possible...
[Brad– I haven’t recanted or withdrawn a thing, merely clarified the intent of the original post. And you’re a bit late. That update to the post was made within a few hours of the original post — long before you posted anything in response. And the link — from which the phrase “Climate McCarthyism” was drawn — was in the original post. As for the phrase “denier,” if that was the origin of the term in the climate context, it would be far less objectionable. JHA]
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November 10, 2009, 3:01 pmSteve Hsu says:
Brad,
No new mutation is required to cause an avg difference of 1 SD in intelligence between two groups that have had little gene flow between them in 50k years.
As evidenced even within particular families, there is enough *existing* genetic variation to cause IQ differences of several SD. That is, someone with IQ of +2 SD or –1 SD is NOT that way due to a specific mutation — they just have more or fewer of the particular alleles that slightly favor or do not favor intelligence. All that is required to cause group differences is that different selection pressures in the different groups made the favorable alleles more common in one group than in another. Your colleague Greg Clark has shown that, plausibly, such selection effects were operative in England over a few hundred year span over which he has data on wills and inheritances (wealthy families out reproduced poor ones, and perhaps wealth had some correlation with having the good alleles for intelligence). Whether that was the case over longer periods of time (e.g., due to adoption of agriculture) is not clear, and it is not clear the selection strengths varied among different groups. But it is not a hypothesis you can reject (as much as you might like to) by your trivial argument.
You can see some more detailed discussion and estimates at the link below — 1 SD change in 10k years is not at all implausible given selection pressures weaker than what Clark identified.
http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2008/12/recent-natural-selection-in-humans.html
Note this is NOT the lactose tolerance story. It’s existing variation due to many alleles and selection on those alleles, perhaps leading to group differences.
Change the word “intelligence” to “height” and for some reason this discussion becomes uncontroversial. Height and intelligence are both likely controlled by many alleles and exhibit significant variation within families and therefore groups. There seem to be group differences in average height...
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November 10, 2009, 7:16 pmTim Lambert says:
JHA says: “Whatever else this post, and your posts, may show, they do not support labeling Pielke a “denier.””
To repeat what I wrote in the comment you replied to: Pielke had challenged him to provide evidence that Pielke was “dishonest and wrong”.
That post provides evidence of this, which was what Pielke was called in the email that DeLong posted.
And Pielke’s personal attack on me that you linked in your post is also dishonest and wrong.
How about we all agree that Pielke is not a denier but that he is dishonest and wrong?
[Tim — The e-mail DeLong posted referred to Pielke as, among other things, a “clever denier.” Subsequently, Pielke and others challenged DeLong to substantiate labeling Pielke a “denier” — something DeLong utterly failed to do. As for the other name-calling, I’ll let the various posts and comments — here and in the links — speak for themselves. JHA]
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November 11, 2009, 1:05 amzuch says:
I seem to remember Condomania back in the ‘80s ... and some rather sad cases when that whole bubble imploded late that decade. Housing prices have unarguably fallen in the past. Cherry-picking your data points (assuming arguendo the accuracy of your statistic) doesn’t change that.
And I think my complaint about Wade should have been obvious from my prior comment.
Cheers,
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November 11, 2009, 1:36 amA. Zarkov says:
Housing prices before 2008 had fallen in the past in some regions, but never for the country as a whole. I’m still not sure what your complaint about Wade is. Give me an example where he goes wrong.
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November 11, 2009, 2:34 amzuch says:
My three initial questions. He didn’t address them. He should have. His comment: “[W]hat other policies founded on consensus wisdom could be waiting to come unraveled?” in unseemly in an erstwhile science reporter, and more the stuff of Popular Mechanics pipedream articles (or even Analog).
Cheers,
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November 11, 2009, 11:37 amzuch says:
Thank you.
Cheers,
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November 11, 2009, 11:37 amJohn Doe says:
DeLong: (I do prune them later, if I think they are actively misleading. But I don’t refuse to post.)
A flat out lie. He prunes lots of comments that no one could possibly think are “actively misleading.”
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November 11, 2009, 12:15 pmTim Lambert says:
Here is the email that DeLong posted:
As JHA knows full well, it actually states that Pielke is “dishonest and wrong” and merely implies that he is a “clever denier”. Pielke challenged DeLong to ‘please do tell what you find here that is evidence of being a “denier” or “stupid and wrong.“‘
Providing evidence that Pielke is dishonest and wrong, as indeed he is, is relevant to this challenge.
[Tim — I’m glad to see you agree that DeLong never provided any evidence that Pielke is a “denier” as the e-mail DeLong posted initially charged. JHA]
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November 12, 2009, 8:53 amanon says:
I’m so sorry I missed this in realtime.
The truth as I’ve experienced it? Brad DeLong deletes comments willy nilly.
I’m actually shocked though that Brad, who does appear to be a polymath, would be so disingenuous or ignorant as to think that “deniers” refers to anything other than the Holocaust.
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December 7, 2009, 2:42 am